The Hot-Chicken Wayback Machine

Crew & Credits

After we published Rachel L. Martin’s great story on Nashville hot chicken yesterday, it seemed like everyone had so much fun talking about the subject, we figured we should keep the hot-chicken vibe going for another day.

That’s when we remembered that nine years ago, the Southern Foodways Alliance — part of the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture — made a short film about Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville. So we asked our friends at the SFA to allow us to give you a fresh look at this little film, which is is arguably the nugget that got this whole hot-chicken avalanche rolling.

“Hot Chicken” was directed by Joe York, a longtime filmmaking documentarian with the SFA and Ole Miss’ Southern Documentary Project. This film is York at his most whimsical, as he explores the “cleansing” properties of hot chicken, its power as an economic-development tool, and the fact that for some folks, hot chicken is kind of an aphrodisiac.